ed by enormous live-oaks, stretches
across from the broad stone steps to the sodded levee, where a flotilla
of small boats, drawn up among the flags and lily-pads, rise and fall
with the lapping waves. On the left of the house the white cabins of the
quarter show their low roofs above the shrubbery; to the right the
plantations of cane, following the inward curve of the bayou, sweep
southward field after field, their billowy blue-green reaches blending
far in the rear with the indistinct purple haze of the swamp. The great
square house, raised high on massive stone pillars, dates back to the
first quarter of the century; its sloping roof is set with rows of
dormer-windows, the big red double chimneys rising oddly from their
midst; wide galleries with fluted columns enclose it on three sides;
from the fourth is projected a long narrow wing, two stories in height,
which stands somewhat apart from the main building, but is connected
with it by a roofed and latticed passageway. The lower rooms of this
wing open upon small porticos, with balustrades of wrought ironwork
rarely fanciful and delicate. From these you may step into the rose
garden--a tangled pleasaunce which rambles away through alleys of
wild-peach and magnolia to an orange grove, whose trees are gnarled and
knotted with the growth of half a century.

The early shadows were cool and dewy there that morning; the breath of
damask-roses was sweet on the air; brown, gold-dusted butterflies were
hovering over the sweet-pease abloom in sunny corners; birds shot up now
and then from the leafy aisles, singing, into the clear blue sky above;
the chorus of the negroes at work among the young cane floated in,
mellow and resonant, from the fields. The old mistress of La Glorieuse
saw it all behind her drooped eyelids. Was it not April too, that
long-gone unforgotten morning? And were not the bees busy in the hearts
of the roses, and the birds singing, when Richard Keith, the first of
the name who came to La Glorieuse, held her hand in his, and whispered
his love-story yonder, by the ragged thicket of crepe-myrtle? Ah,
Felice, my child, thou art young, but I too have had my sixteen years;
and yellow as are the curls on the head bent over thine, those of the
first Richard were more golden still. And the second Richard, he who--

Marcelite's hand fell heavily on her mistress's shoulder. Madame
Arnault opened her eyes and sat up, grasping the arms of her chair. A
harsh grating